ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The House ethics committee Wednesday approved an outside counsel to investigate Rep. Newt Gingrich's conduct, ensuring a protracted inquiry extending well into the 1996 election year. The vote was 10-0.
Gingrich's spokesman, Tony Blankley, and congressional sources said the counsel would investigate a college course taught by the House speaker and financed with tax-deductible donations.
The committee also found Gingrich violated a rule that prohibits mingling official and unofficial resources, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. He did so by permitting a political adviser, Joseph Gaylord, to work out of his Capitol office, the sources said.
The committee dismissed a complaint that Gingrich received a gift of free cable television time and that a publisher's auction for his book, ``To Renew America,'' was rigged. The auction drove up the advance Gingrich was offered to $4.5 million - an amount he relinquished after intense criticism.
Democrats on and off the committee have been demanding an outside counsel for months as they focused their 1996 House campaigns as a referendum on the Georgia Republican's confrontational personality and conservative legislative program.
``There's virtually no way any reasonable person could find a violation, but we look forward to getting an expert in to confirm that,'' Blankley said. ``This is a substantial vindication.''
The committee, which voted to begin a formal ``preliminary inquiry,'' said the special counsel would investigate all tax issues involving his college course. In order to reach that decision, the committee found it had ``reason to believe'' there may have been violations.
The decision begins a long process that will result in a committee decision to either file formal charges or find no basis for charges. If charges are filed, Gingrich would have a formal hearing.
The full House would decide any major disciplinary action, ranging from a reprimand to expulsion.
A complaint filed a year ago contends that Gingrich's college lectures - taught in Georgia but beamed around the country by satellite - were really a fund-raising tool of GOPAC.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB